These Hands

image from onsizzle
For the record, I don't play Pokémon Go. I'm more of a Bakugan kinda gal.

That being said, These Hands have once again become a dead weight. Max went back to his home on Wednesday, so I rode yesterday, hoping that he retained everything. In all honesty, he did. He retained everything very well, but he's also retained everything he knew about his home, which includes trying to race back to the barn and going super duper slow. Sure those are undesirable habits, but my reaction wasn't any better. It wasn't as bad as our ride from two weeks ago, but I'm not sure whether I prefer a horse shutting down on me or curling away from contact. If I could, I would go out again this week and fix what I broke, but that's just not feasible.


Despite me not putting in my fair share, we had a lot of good moments. The walk is darn near perfect, and he has some good self carriage through the walk and trot. He took to the transitions thing exceptionally well, better even than overall softness. The canter is improving incrementally. The ring is on the smaller side, and he does dive, which is partially habit but mostly his lack of balance. Having him sit up around such a small side is going to be difficult.

I took the plunge and jumped him again, too, and that went really well. My equitation is lack luster (but when is it not, tbh), but he's got a cute form. I even dared to go over an oxer at the challenging height of *gasp* 2'0". I know, we'll be Olympians in no time.


Footage as usual:

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